Elon Musk Spars With Bernie Sanders, Offers to Sell More Tesla Stock

Tesla CEO Elon Musk uses his mobile device as he sits in the car arriving to the construction site for the new plant, the so-called “Giga Factory”, of U.S. electric carmaker Tesla in Gruenheide near Berlin, northeastern Germany, on May 17, 2021. (ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk got into a spat with social democrat Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Sunday after the U.S. senator demanded the “extremely wealthy” pay their “fair share” of taxes.

“We must demand that the extremely wealthy pay their fair share. Period,” Sanders wrote on Twitter. Taking a jibe at the “Make Billionaires Pay” senator, Musk responded by saying “I keep forgetting that you’re still alive.”

The billionaire CEO who had already offloaded a combined $6.9 billion worth of shares in the electric car company as of Nov. 12, further wrote, “Want me to sell more stock, Bernie? Just say the word.”

Sanders’ tweet comes amid the backdrop of the progressive left’s efforts to hike taxes for the super-wealthy.

U.S. Senate Democrats have unveiled a proposal to tax billionaires’ stocks and other tradeable assets to help finance President Joe Biden’s social spending agenda and close a loophole that has allowed them to defer capital gains taxes indefinitely.

A week ago, Musk tweeted that he would sell 10 percent of his shares if users of the social media platform endorsed the move.

“Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this? I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes,” the poll read.

About 57.9 percent of people voted for the stock sale, which saw Musk go ahead with the sale.

By Aishwarya Nair

Reuters

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